1. Field of Technology
The present invention relates to aviation oil coolers, and more specifically to the disassembly cleaning, recoring, and reassembly of an aviation oil cooler using a reassembly jig.
2. Related Art
The aircraft industry is composed of an aging fleet of aircraft many of which are no longer production. Therefore, parts for such aircraft are extremely difficult to acquire, if the parts car found at all, and in many situations, new replacement parts are non-existent. As a result, the aviation industry is now faced with repairing existing parts that have already been repaired a number of ti or scraping a part that is no longer repairable.
Oil coolers (e.g., oil hydraulic, air to oil, etc.) and other heat exchangers in the aging aviation fleet are constructed of a series of plates and fins that are stacked and vacuum braised into a solid unit called a "core". Aviation oil coolers and "core" components are well known in the relevant art and are commercially available. In most applications, the oil cooler must be exposed to a strong flow of air in order for it to perform the heat transfer for which it was designed. This strong air flow unfortunately promotes foreign object debris (FOD) to the unit over a period of time.
In the case of aviation oil coolers and other heat exchangers, today's method of repair is no different than it was twenty years ago. The conventional method for repairing cracks and holes in an aviation oil cooler or other heat exchanger and returning it to service comprises the steps of welding, braising, soldering, epoxy and blocking off a number of tubes to repair leaks. More specifically, the core of a damaged aviation oil cooler is repaired while remaining integrated with the original oil cooler unit. This method maintains the use of the original core in the original oil cooler such that the resulting repaired oil cooler is weaker and more prone to future damage than a new oil cooler having a new replacement core.
Therefore, there is a need for a method for recoring a conventional aviation oil cooler that removes the original damaged core from an existing aviation oil cooler, replaces it with a new replacement core, and returns the aviation oil cooler to its original equipment manufacturer (OEM) specifications.
In order to return a disassembled manufactured product to its OEM specifications, the individual components of the product must be held in proper position and alignment to each other during reassembly. However, there are no available "jigs," or structures. that function as a template for assembling a manufactured product. Therefore, there is a need for a reassembly jig for holding the components of an aviation oil cooler in their proper position during reassembly so as to maintain the OEM specifications for the reassembled aviation oil cooler.